Ronnie O’Sullivan through to second round of 2023 Wuhan Open with win over veteran Ken Doherty

Ronnie O’Sullivan proved too good for Ken Doherty as he won their opening-round match at the Wuhan Open 5-1.

O’Sullivan made breaks of 88, 89 and 82 as he overcame the 54-year-old.

He fell behind against Doherty, who missed one chance to build a big break in the opening frame, but returned with a second chance and took it.

The Irishman had a chance to go two up when he had the first real opening of the next frame but missed after his first red, and O’Sullivan came to the table with a break of 88, with a miss on a red bringing it to a close, as well as bringing an inspection of his new tip.

At 48-31 up in the third frame, O’Sullivan missed a pink into the bottom left and allowed Doherty in to attempt a snooker.

Doherty made one century last season and he never threatened to break his duck as he struggled to build any sizeable break.

The Irishman seized on a chance to sink one red and then the blue, but he was faced with a challenge of dealing with the final red, tight onto the left-hand cushion.

He could not take his chance and O’Sullivan came back to take the lead in an ultimately scrappy third.

In the final frame before the mid-session interval, a tricky red was missed and O’Sullivan came in and elected to switch to the pink and then blue after several blacks in order to build an easier break, but with a century looking possible, a poor connection stopped him at 89.

After the restart, Doherty had a 12-0 advantage before resting the cue ball against the pack of reds.

O’Sullivan was able to force an error from his opponent and was given the chance to pick up some loose reds and start to move forward.

A miss from O’Sullivan left him with a 12-point advantage, but Doherty could only glance a red against the left-hand jaw to let his opponent back in to move within one frame of a last-64 match against Mark Davis.